Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday July 11, 2009 @01:33PM
from the don'tcha-just-hate-online-crime dept.

chrb writes "Two British men have become the first to be jailed for inciting racial hatred online. The men believed that material they published on web servers based in the United States did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law and was protected under the First Amendment. This argument was rejected by the British trial judge. After being found guilty, the men fled to Los Angeles, where they attempted to claim political asylum, again arguing that they were being persecuted by the British government for speech that was protected under the First Amendment. The asylum bid was rejected and the two were deported back to the UK after spending over a year in a US jail."

is it the act of hating someone due to their racial background or sexual orientation which is illegal? or just running your mouth about it?.
if its the former its thought crime and if its the latter its censorship.
I don't believe in hate crime, not because I am a racist or a homofob its just that laws like that tend to be abused.
Besides I like living in a free society where the government doesn't get to decide what I can legally think.

"Hate crime" is a blanket term for laws that regulate speech with the intent of suppressing racism. More recently this has expanded to include homophobia. How those laws are viewed largely depends on whether the viewer feels more strongly about bigotry or censorship; whether you see a greater evil in suppression of speech or unreasoning hatred.

I'd call censorship the greater evil, but despite that I'm ambivalent about this particular case. On the one hand, I do not think such a law ought to exist at all, on the other hand, I just can't muster any outrage at a neo-Nazi getting jailed. I suspect that it's cases like this that allow such laws to remain in effect - try to oppose the law on principle and you'll find yourself in the position of having to defend the bigots, something that even those most committed to free speech find repellent.

Hate crime laws don't suppress racism... they might suppress public expression of racism, but people will still hate privately, likely using the hate crime laws themselves as a valid excuse to promote hate to others. "Look at James Byrd, they gave two of the three white guys that dragged him to death the death penalty and the other life, while the three black guys that did the same thing to Ken Tillery got 15, 20 and 70 years..." It's hard to enforce the law equally when the purpose of the law is to setup specific protected classes and that will result in more division.

IMO, it's much better to get people to express themselves publicly since it gives them an avenue to vent while simultaneously allowing you to deflate their arguments before they can spread the hate.

I live in NY... and you'll hear lots of people saying they were proud to vote for a black man for President, but those same people moved when blacks started encroaching on their white neighborhoods, send their kids to mostly white private schools, etc. While they publicly talk a good game, they still don't want to be around "those kind of people" privately. That undertone of racism is allowed to go unchallenged though, largely because as long as the racism isn't overtly public, it "isn't" really racism. I'd argue refusing to let your kids go to school with someone of a different color isn't much different from beating someone else up for being a different color. The same hate exists, just expressed differently... Sure, one is a violent crime which deserves a penalty in its own right, but the other goes completely unpunished and undiscussed.

Ultimately, if we want racism (and sexism, homophobia, etc) to end, we need to stop drawing lines to divide people into different camps and giving special treatment to "the right groups." Anything short of equal treatment breeds a hate itself.

I live in NY... and you'll hear lots of people saying they were proud to vote for a black man for President, but those same people moved when blacks started encroaching on their white neighborhoods, send their kids to mostly white private schools, etc. While they publicly talk a good game, they still don't want to be around "those kind of people" privately.

That's complete nonsense. They don't live in those neighborhoods and send their children to those schools because they want racial segregation - they do it because those neighborhoods and those schools are upper-class environments where their children can prosper without having to worry excessively about crime or violence, and because those schools tend to offer a better quality of education. Parents who can afford to send their kids to a private school don't start the selection process by saying "hrm, let's see which school has the fewest negros" - they send their children to the best school they can find. Unfortunately, due to the economic discrepancy between the races, those schools tend to have fewer black students, but you're confusing correlation with causation.

You know, it's like you went out to a rich neighborhood, looked at the kind of cars most of them drive, and then concluded that rich people must be massively pro-German. It makes no sense.

As for the whole "proud to vote for a black man" thing... that IS racist. If you're more proud to vote for a particular candidate due to his race, you're a bigot, regardless of whether he's black, white, green, or purple.

As for the whole "proud to vote for a black man" thing... that IS racist. If you're more proud to vote for a particular candidate due to his race, you're a bigot, regardless of whether he's black, white, green, or purple.

If you think that he deserves the position, but in the past you wouldn't have voted for him anyway but now you do, then that's something to be proud over. Sure you might say that you're just doing the right thing you should have done all along, though I disagree. Overcoming your bigotry is hard and cause for pride.

Of course, if you didn't really think he was the best candidate only that the country needed a token black precident as a racial feelgood measure then I agree. Then you've just clouded your judgem

When I moved to Canada, my family didn't have much money and we lived in one of the worst areas in the city. We had plenty of neighbors of all sorts of races and religions, and it didn't bother me a bit - I was mainly worried about the daily robberies and assaults, the drug addicts in the stairwells, and dog-shit being left in the hallways. So as soon as we saved enough money to afford better accommodations, we moved.

We moved again, 3 more times in the following 10 years. During each move, our new area was less "diverse" than the last one. According to your world-view, that means we're horrible bigots who hate minorities. In reality it's just a case of us being able to accumulate wealth, and preferring to live in a cleaner, safer environment, surrounded by people who care about their neighborhood. I wouldn't give a damn if 90% of my neighbors were black as long as the quality of the people and the maintenance of the area remained the same. Race isn't the problem - crime, violence, and shitty attitudes are. If I lived in an all-white neighborhood where I had to worry about crime, violence, drug addicts in the stairwells and dog-shit in the the hallways, I'd move out of that area too. What would that make me - a Self-Hating-Caucasian?

And no, neither I nor the rest of my family is "rich" even now, but we are a hell of a lot better off than we were when we got here, and could certainly be considered rich when compared to the people who still inhabit our original neighborhood.

'I live in NY... and you'll hear lots of people saying they were proud to vote for a black man for President, but those same people moved when blacks started encroaching on their white neighborhoods, send their kids to mostly white private schools, etc.'

I'm sorry but that is not racism. They aren't moving because blacks are moving into their neighborhood they are moving because the culture that prevails in black neighborhoods is encroaching on their own. The same is true of the schools.

I'm sorry to all of those who want to call it the 'new racism' but opposing your children being influenced by a culture of rap/hip hop that romanticizes abuse of women, use of dangerous drugs like crack, gang violence, and the idea that people should be loud, rude, and obnoxious in their interaction with others is perfectly valid. The fact that people are afraid to express that idea openly and publicly without fear of being called racist is a sign that the public face of "white" america is diseased not their thoughts behind closed doors.

Why were people willing to elect Obama (your votes are still private not public actions like you seem to suggest)? They elected Obama because his race is irrelevant what is important is that he didn't show signs of being a part of that culture and because he doesn't speak ebonics (which is superficial but to anyone who didn't grow up speaking ebonics it simply sounds like the broken English of the uneducated).

I think the US and UK must have different definitions of "hate crime." In the US, it's an act that would have been a crime anyways, but motivated by any of a specific list of taboos. In the UK, apparently the speech is a crime in itself, even if nobody gets hurt.

Though the US version seems ripe for abuse, it still seems more sensible than the UK version, and I don't think the US version is totally unreasonable. Take the recent holocaust museum shooting [examiner.com]... a white man murders a black guard in an attack on a symbol of Judaism. Clearly it was a hate crime - not against blacks, even though that's the only person he murdered - but against Jews. But he didn't just think about hating Jews, he took forcible action to terrorize them, so I can at least see the rationale in some extra punishment for that, on top of murdering a guy.

Speaking of the murder of the guard, cop killers get harsher sentences too, likely including death, since cops represent a symbolic group with extra risks - in other words, a hate crimes. I wonder if all those against special protections for minority groups are also against harsher penalties for killing cops, assassinating heads of state, etc?

Actually from what you presented in your post, there is no evidence whatsoever that the museum shooting was a hate crime. A white man goes and shoots a black man at the holocaust museum. There is nothing in the act itself that suggests a hate crime (any more than someone knocking over a 7-11 with a sikh cashier is likely to be a hate crime against sikhs).

The problem with hate crime laws is that it is near impossible to actually prove that the crime was motivated by racial or other prejudice (except for particular cases where say, the culprit specifically told someone that's why he was going to do it). Even if a person is publicly known to hate members of another group, and he murders a member of that group, that is not proof that his prejudice was the motivator, but it will very likely get him convicted under the hate crime law.

In effect, the burden of proof is so low on the 'hate motive' that it becomes no different from the UK's law. It makes certain thoughts illegal, just in the US case you only get charged if you commit an actual crime as well--then the prosecutor says, "Not only did he murder John Doe, but he hates people like John Doe, so that must have been why," with no evidence that this was actually a factor.

I agree about the potential risks, but not in this case. The Holocaust Museum shooting perpetrator is a poster child [cbsnews.com] for prejudice, with a 60 year self-avowed history of anti-semitism. Furthermore, the Holocaust Museum has such overt symbolism that he could not possibly have attacked it without knowing exactly what message he would send. Are you arguing it's just a coincidence he attacked there?

I think class-based law is hypocritical in a nation "Where all men are created equal." Having a tiered law system smacks of "separate but equal" combined with a form of hyper-political correctness, neither of which are healthy for an open, democratic society. Discrimination is a property of Humanity, to deny it is foolhardy; all points of view have a place but are not all equal, to equate them all tips the scale in favor of anarchy ove

The problem goes beyond the success or failure of hate crime. The problem is the idea that the government should be taking a stance on issues like racism in the first place. It doesn't matter if I make decisions based on racism, fiscal views, political stances, etc. People are entitled to think as they will and justify what they do to themselves however they wish. All that matters is their actions and the results.

If CEO Y believes that minority A are lazy and don't work well then ultimately his company will

If CEO Y believes that minority A are lazy and don't work well then ultimately his company will fail compared with CEO X who believes that all races perform equally. Maybe not on a single example Y vs X example since there are other factors but over time a statistically significant sample will develop and prove itself. At which point CEO's who follow the money will win, regardless of which stance that is.

Except when the vast majority of employers share the view of CEO Y and thus almost nobody will hire people from minority A which will then have to resort to some other form of survival, which will generally be crime or social welfare, thus reinforcing the stereotype that justifies the view that put them in the situation in the first place.

The only problem there is that racism is a learned response. If you prevent public displays of it, the distribution of hate speech, and the dissemination of such practices, you prevent societies' young from learning and eventually deifying that type of behavior. Hate crimes do not police people's thoughts. They help to prevent such people from spreading that hate, or inflicting it on others due to stiffer penalties. As a result, people are less likely to commit such a crime. Even with hate crimes bills, you

If you prevent public displays of it, the distribution of hate speech, and the dissemination of such practices, you prevent societies' young from learning and eventually deifying that type of behavior.

Or maybe suppression of the speech will drive it underground, make it taboo, and in a sense, make it more appealing to those who are lonely and looking for a sense or subversive belonging. Think Streisand Effect, teenage rebellion, and drug prohibition rolled into one.

It least where I live these days "Hate Speech" is a blanket term for that for laws that regulate speech which has the design of inciting men to violence. That and we have laws specifically about glorifying the Drittes Reich or Nationalsozialismus; denying the holocaust; and generally attempting to relive the mistakes of the past. As far as I can tell these laws are pretty useful because to a man all that have been prosecuted have been intent on goading others to do violence, part of violent groups, done v

Your definition of "thought crime" as "muttering to yourself" is completely bogus trivializing.

As for the tolerance of "hate speech" creating a freer and safer society here - the difference between the US and most of the rest of the world is we let it all hang out - the good, the bad and the ugly so that we get public discourse and an eventual meeting of the minds, even if it does take a generation or two and a lot of nasty words to get there. We are the most ethnic and culturally integrated country in the world in part because of that - contrast that to all the states with laws against insulting groups, your immigrants are far, far less integrated into mainstream society.

You can't fight bad words with censorship, only good words in response to bad words can do that. Censorship just takes away the opportunity for someone to respond with good words.

The US is not the most multicultural or well integrated society in the world...

Really? Name two with a broader range of ethnic populations. I expect you want to point to countries like Sweden and Belgium which rate near the top of EU countries for integration but the number of sizable distinct ethnic groups in those countries is tiny compared to the USA.

I've never heard the assertion of societies which allow people "to insult groups" causes better integration into that society. Frankly that is more bogus and trivializing than my flippant characterization of thought crime.

One man's insult is another man's truth. If you don't allow insults then all you do is drive the insults underground where there is no one to rebuke them and thus gain even further legitimacy.

Furthermore, If you think that the public discourse in the United States is some how creating a meeting of the minds or such (and you live in the United States), you are deceiving yourself.

I do and history is on my side. I expected you to make the error of using too small of a timescale.

I am of Jewish heritage. My great grandparents were shot by the Nazis. Part of my family is Argentinian, as they were forced to flee there to escape the death camps. I don't like Nazis of any sort. But I still think the freedom of speech is more important. Suppressing someone's beliefs, through any means is wrong. If that means is hate crime laws or death camps, it's still wrong.

The hate crimes legislation comes into play, at least in the US, when it crosses from just expression to incitement of violence or represents a threat to other people's safety. This isn't really that fine of a line, I'm not aware of cases going forward where it wasn't terribly obvious that it had crossed the line sometime previously.

I agree completely Citizen! The fact that it was already illegal to incite violence was inadequate - that only protected public safety, and did nothing to deter BadThink. We must trust the Leaders to guide us towards GoodThink at all times! Inciting violence because you lack thought process approved by our Leader is far, far worse than otherwise inciting violence, because it's more important to stop BadThink than violence any day.

Jailing MPs who argue in parliament against the positions of the ruling party could only happen in the UK, here our Leaders are firm supporters of free speech and would never abuse power in any way!

I agree completely Citizen! The fact that it was already illegal to incite violence was inadequate - that only protected public safety, and did nothing to deter BadThink. We must trust the Leaders to guide us towards GoodThink at all times! Inciting violence because you lack thought process approved by our Leader is far, far worse than otherwise inciting violence, because it's more important to stop BadThink than violence any day.

The trouble with busting out 1984 references and parodies every time this happens is it cheapens them to the point of irrelevance. If every infringement upon liberty, no matter how significant, is called tyranny, than what shall real tyranny be called?

Orwell would probably be troubled by the direction we're heading in. He'd also probably be appalled at how silly we've made his (legitimate) concerns look to the world.

1984 is a chilling look at how the world could become if we let it, it is not raw material for constructing alarmist strawmen.

The problem with your point of view is that it does not take into account the political strategy called "Incrementalism".

That is; By restricting liberty in small and seemingly innocuous steps, that taken individually seem logical and generally harmless, one can slowly reduce a society under absolute tyranny and the majority of the people will say nothing until it is far too late to stop the change.

This is the strategy of the far left in most of the world. Having found that outright military takeover has o

Right, the argument that begins with a metaphor. If you put a frog in boiling water, it leaps out; put it in warm water and boil it incrementally, and it cooks alive.

Trouble is, the metaphor has it exactly backwards. In real life, the frog getting dropped into boiling water dies swiftly, while the one in the slowly heating pot jumps clear when the temperature rises beyond its comfort level.

Same applies in real life. I can't think of a single genuinely totalitarian regime in the past century that came into being incrementally without something disastrous to accompany it. Nazi Germany had the lingering aftereffects of WWI coupled with a failed economy, same applies to Soviet Russia, China was recovering from an invasion, as were too many other parts of southeast Asia to count. Lets not even get into the myriad tyrants in the middle east, all rising amidst local turmoil.

You get totalitarian regimes in the wake of wars (especially losing ones), societal collapses, economic depressions, massive social injustice or other transitory crises. Things go wrong and the government "steps in", taking power with the promise of giving it back when the trouble has passed, which only happens occasionally.

Impose tyranny gradually and the opposition to tyranny will also rise gradually to meet it. Impose it all at once, under the guise of necessary sacrifices in the face of adversity, and the opposition can be silenced swiftly.

I think it's a combination of your opinion and grandparent in US society. It's a series of small crises (real, imagined, or exaggerated), within each a different freedom slightly eroded. The right erodes a certain set of civil liberties and the left erodes a different set. Power shifts hands, sure, but the freedoms generally don't come back once they're gradually taken away. Look at how second amendment rights have been gradually eaten away or how the right has somehow managed to establish authority over what people put in their own bodies, something Jefferson was explicitly opposed to.

Very good. My only complaint about your post is that, at least in the States, the far right has the same strategy. The far left gives us tyranny in one way, while the far right gives us tyranny in a different way. It's as though they are playing for the same team.

slowly wiping out Liberty in the West and replacing it with Tyrannical Socialist government.

Pal, I don't think you have any idea what "Tyrannical" or "Socialist" really means. You're just parroting corporate-sponsored Right-Wing AM radio talking points. You think that because you jump up and salute every time Rush or Hannity or Sarah Palin or some UK neo-nazi hollers is showing some sort of "love of Freedom", but you're really just reacting to a careful marketing plan put in place by corporate powers who feel cheated when someone on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder makes ten cents more per hour. If we give everyone health care, after all, how are we going to force them to keep working for wages? If we educate people, after all, how are we going to fill the factories with minimum wage workers? If people stop believing in their patriarchal God the Father, expecting to go to heaven, they're going to expect better lives now and want to keep from fouling their planet, which would be bad for profits.

When you try to suggest that any Western European or North American country is headed for "Tyrannical Socialism" you display the kind of ignorance that you'd expect from someone who uses a sig like "Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". You're ready to believe any kind of crap that you're told, as long as it comes with a heaping dose of hatred of people with darker skin or funny accents.

You say that the idea of "hate speech" laws are a tool to take away our freedoms. What do you think of laws that use the word "terrorism" to do the same? It's OK, because those laws are aimed at the muslims, but hate speech laws are aimed directly at your own hate-filled self. Your misplaced fear is not that hate crime acts are going to take away your freedom, but that your very world-view is called into question. You're so in love with your own hatred and ignorance that you're afraid someone's going to take it away like a favorite blanket.

You'd be pitiful if you weren't such a danger. You have this notion that there was some magical period in our history when we were "Free" and had "Liberty" and even though you can't point to any such period on a time-line, you're eager to turn the clock back as long as it means that you can go back to feeling superior to the wogs.

And don't try to say "You don't know me," because I've spent enough time in red state America and the rural UK to know folk like you like the back of my own hand.

You say that the idea of "hate speech" laws are a tool to take away our freedoms. What do you think of laws that use the word "terrorism" to do the same?

I'd say that both sets of laws are generally bad. I would think that a law against directly and effectively inciting violence would be better. If a person is just ranting, rather than actually trying to organise people to go hurt others, then as despicable as their speech may be, I'd prefer them to be able to say it.
My thoughts on the matter boil down to this: People have the right to be jerks, but we should be creating a world where people don't want to be jerks.
These neo-Nazis are exercising their rights, and society has failed because they have chosen to exercise them in this way.
These guys don't seem to have actually hurt anybody, so I'd prefer to see them get counselling to deal with the root cause of why they feel the way they do. A reformed neo-Nazi would be a better instrument against Nazism that someone who never thought about it one way or the other.
For you U.S. citizens out there, you should be opposed to these guys being jailed, because if they were jailed for the same act in the U.S., it would be unconstitutional, and by applauding it, you would be effectively saying that you are opposed to the first amendment. And if you believe that the constitution is so good for you, then you should be striving for others to have the freedoms that you have.

I hope your God one day deigns to assist you in gaining some perspective.

First of all, Obama is not anything like a Socialist. European states that any reasonable political scientist would describe as essentially capitalist have socialized many more industries than will ever fall under government ownership in the US (this is true even under the assumption that every policy Obama wants to see implemented is implemented, which is unlikely).

Simplified: Tyrants do not rise to power in vacuum. They're given power in crises, usually because people are afraid and want the tyrant to protect them. The erosion of rights is also present, but it's not the be-all and end-all of how you get from a free society to a totalitarian one, and fixating too heavily on it makes every unjust law appear to be a sinister conspiracy by the

I don't believe in hate crime, not because I am a racist or a homofob its just that laws like that tend to be abused.

I don't believe in hate speech crime, not because I am a racist or a homophobe but because I believe in the right of individuals to think and to say whatever the fuck they want without somebody shutting their mouth by force or putting them in jail for it. Laws prohibiting hate speech don't have to be abused to be wrong, they are also wrong when functioning as intended. If you disagree with racists or homophobes feel free to say so, but don't use the force of government to shut them up because you are replacing one evil with a greater one. And besides, is there an easier thing to argue against and to ridicule than the irrational and primitive nonsense that such people tend to say. Why would you even need such laws is beyond me. I am only sorry that the US government is not willing to step up and protect people from other countries, however odious their beliefs might be, who are persecuted at home for no greater crime than speaking their mind and who seek refuge here.

I don't believe in hate speech crime......I am only sorry that the US government is not willing to step up and protect people from other countries, however odious their beliefs might be, who are persecuted at home for no greater crime than speaking their mind and who seek refuge here.

Call it what it is: inciting violence.The fundamental crime is not "hate," it's the inciting of violence towards [people].The hate part just adds extra jail time because they're targeting someone for something that isn't necessarily a choice like race/skin color/religion/etc.

To be clear... saying "I want to kill soldiers and you should to"and "I want to kill nigger soldiers and you should to" is already a crime.The only difference is that we, as a society, have decided the latter is moreodious to our culture and that the punishment should be greater as a result.

Well yes, I happen to disagree with any outright prohibition of free speech, whether true or false, including yelling fire in a crowded theater - although, let those injured or the owner of the theater sue the culprit if they suffer any damages from it. While that's a minority position, you are going too far in the other direction. Are you really saying that making false claims about president's position on gun control ought to be a crime because some nutcase might decide to shoot somebody because of it? If so, then if you think my position is "dangerous" it's nothing compared to yours. There is practically no limit to government control of free speech if any false statement that might conceivably cause some psycho to go off can be prohibited. In my opinion, the only guilty parties in those shootings, as in Klan bombings, are the shooters and bombers themselves. They could have easily ignored those who "egged them on" but they chose not to.

Agreed. A good example is the militia movement in the 90's. There was a very loud and oft repeated national call to violence as people were getting more and more upset with the government. But that doesn't mean everyone involved in those movements is guilty or wrong because Timothy McVey used it as an excuse to firebomb children in a civilian target.

In fact, ultimately inciting violence is fundamental to freedom of speech because its most basic purpose is to incite violence against corrupt government in the

It's somewhat like saying that during the 20s and 30s when the Klan was at the height of its power that it's OK to repeat Klan talking points, just don't be the one that's actually throwing the bombs.

and yet the klan is no longer at the height of it's power, despite the US having no hate speech laws. How did that happen? Let's do more of that, rather than abridge freedom of speech.

The first amendment has never been absolute, there's always been prohibitions on things such as threats, libel and slander allowing for an extra penalty for the extra damage that hate speech does when it crosses the line is perfectly reasonable.

We had a case here in Australia of two christian guys been done over in court (eventually overturned on appeal) over inciting religious hatred against Muslims. Most people would probably find these guys to be over the top. However, during the case they were apparently asked to stop reading from the Koran because it was vilifyi

Well, most people do. And these days, that's all you need to throw someone in jail forever: The consent of the people.

Who are "most people"? Do you have a cite or statistics to back this up? I didn't think so.

The fact of the matter is (and I'm a centrist Democrat) that minority groups of various persuasions have squealed to the media about hate motivated crimes and laws have been put through by self-righteous cappuccino Dems while vilifying anybody who dares oppose it.

I'm from Cincinnati (yeah, we've got one hell of a past, check dangerous neighborhood listings [walletpop.com] and witness our #1 glory) and I've seen it happen: five white guys beat the shit out of a black guy and it's a hate crime. Five black guys beat the shit out of a white guy and it's just a "crime"... in fact it's business as usual. I work in the engineering field and I personally know three engineers (including a female) who have been assaulted while trying to get to data centers on off-hours calls. Hint: all the perps were black and all the victims were white.

You can bleat anecdote and I can show you trends.

There are just as many black racists here as there are white. I lost count of how many times I've been called cracker, honkey, casper, etc. Just for walking down the street. I've spoken to others, and yes, it's the norm. I'm a pretty big guy so nobody ever acts on it (and I'm a prior military CCW if they do), but for more "average" people you're pretty much screwed.

And remember, when you're getting your teeth kicked out in the gutter for being a stupid white motherfucker in "our" part of town during the night, it's not a hate crime. We just don't like you straight white folks.

But the government loves you, and wants you to be happy. Why do you hate the government? Maybe you should go through a program to rehabilitate you. If you hate the government and it's policies then you obviously hate other races and such.

[/sarcasm]

Therein lies the problem. This is exactly why thought-crime is such a dangerous notion.

The legal aspect of the term hate crime was invent to make sure such crime were actually PROSECUTED. Not long ago, crime A by person type B against person type C was no big deal. Stomp a fag to death, burn a cross on a nigger's lawn, no problem. The people enforcing the laws were the same as the people breaking them, so often the crimes were unpunished. Enter hate crimes. Now it's harder to get away with it.

Some hate crimes are meant to terrorize, which makes them actually WORSE than the act itself. Fo

The holocaust is not a crime to you? Most would call that a hate crime but obviously you disagree.

That's a strawman argument if I ever saw one. We're discussing whether it should be legal to publicly denigrate Jews, not mass murder them.

Hate crimes exist in europe because in europe we have seen far to closely what happens if hatred is left unchecked.

And the US has never seen what happens when hatred is left unchecked? How exactly does legislating against hatred "check" it anyway? Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it will go away.

Mind you, the americans think the KKK has a right to exist. In europe it is forbidden to be a member of a nazi group. Neither method seems to work in keeping people from being killed because of what race/sex/orientation they are.

Nice. Generalise about Americans in a tirade against racism. Anyone see the irony?

But this is the UK and if the UK people want a system where racists can be locked up for spreading hatred then you that is their freedom.

The brits and most of europe choose different.

And you can THINK what you want. it is spreading what you think that is restricted.

Isn't this a better definition of a society that is not free? As Voltaire said, "while I may not agree with what you say, I'll defend to the death your right to say it".

It'd be nice if there was a "-1, half-baked knee-jerk reaction" moderation option.

This is old news in Finland. We have had at least 4 convictions on dubious basis within one year. "Insulting" muslims and negroes seems to be verboten while insulting christians and white males is ok. 1984.

This is old news in Finland. We have had at least 4 convictions on dubious basis within one year. "Insulting" muslims and negroes seems to be verboten while insulting christians and white males is ok. 1984.

As a fellow Finn I must say that I have not heard of such dubious convictions, and would be interested in seeing some proof of such. I would also like to point out that those who insult "muslims and negroes" in this country are overwhelmingly white Christian males. If there were widespread racism on the part of the non-white non-Christian population toward the ethnic majority, I can assure you that the yellow press would be all over it. It would be too lucrative for them to downplay it. So far, there has been no word of such, so I have a hard time stomaching your allegation that "insulting christians and white males is ok."

Also worthy of note is that insulting Muslims, Christians, Blacks or Whites is perfectly allowed and legal in this country, as long as you don't insult them for being Muslims, Christians, Blacks or Whites.

Actually, freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights [wikipedia.org], 1689. However, keeping a freedom requires the populace to care about it. In Britain's case everyone's too busy hating Europeans (then going on holiday there), being paranoid about jails full of paedophiles and being scared of terrorists and KnifeCrime(tm) to worry about the finer points of freedom of speech. Obviously these two are a pair of scum bags, so no-one cares to defend them, for what it's worth I believe their freedom of speech should

There is no free speech anywhere, just people that harp on that they have it and others dont.

There are certainly things you could say in the US that would mean that you would end up in jail. It might be for some other reason, but if you started publically praising the 9/11 hijackers (for example), you can expect the authorities to start looking into your business pretty closely. You had better be whiter than white. Most likely you would end up incarcerated (assuming you lived long enough to get there), for

There is no free speech anywhere, just people that harp on that they have it and others dont.

When I was a kid I tried using that argument on my parents when they insisted that I clean my room. "There's no sch thing as a clean room, only different levels of messiness". They weren't terribly impressed with that approach, and now, reading your comment, I can see why.

Orwell was supportive of individual rights, and saw it as a failing of self-proclaimed solcialists that they so often were not.

We have got to admit that if Fascism is everywhere advancing, this is largely the fault of the Socialists themselves. Partly it is due to the mistaken communist tactic of sabotaging democracy, i.e. sawing off the branch you are sitting on; but still more to the fact that Socialists have, so to speak, presented their case wrong side foremost. They have never made it sufficiently clear that the essential aims of Socialism are justice and liberty.

Orwell saw very well how stifling democracy, especially opposing speech, to protect your cause leads inevitably to facism. He wrote about the Communists taking control of Spain

"The logical end is a régime in which every opposition party and newspaper is suppressed and every dissentient of any importance is in jail. Of course, such a régime will be Fascism. It will not be the same Fascism Franco would impose, it will even be better than Franco's Fascism to the extent of being worth fighting for, but it will be Fascism. Only, being operated by Communists and Liberals, it will be called something different.

I never understand what people like this hope to accomplish. Inciting racial hatred... really, it's like internet trolling - it just gets people flustered and angry, and they do it for 'teh lulz'. It's pathetic. Nothing changes; nobody is going to be swayed by their infantile invective, they aren't ever going to have the people they dislike evicted from their country. Even if they did, would it really make their life any better?

The common thread amongst racists that I've found is that they invariably want someone to blame for the state of their own lives, and they choose someone who is obviously different from them, because it's easy. These guys aren't smart, capable people; they're losers. It takes people with amazing charisma and a climate of social discontent to legitimise racially prejudicial attitudes - insulting cartoons shoved under a synagogue door don't make the grade.

Should they be imprisoned? Maybe. But I think we'd accomplish just as much by ignoring them and their malcontent existance, as one would an internet troll.

Of course overt hate speech increases violence, are you nuts? Check out history of the partition of India. In many parts of the world violence is always just below the surface, and it only takes one or two unwise remarks in public to trigger rioting.

Of course overt hate speech increases violence, are you nuts? Check out history of the partition of India. In many parts of the world violence is always just below the surface, and it only takes one or two unwise remarks in public to trigger rioting.

And his point is that because "hate speech" is outlawed in most of the rest of the world that violence is always just under the surface. Its like forest fires - stopping the little ones is like censorship, but the end result is that the big ones are unstoppable and far more dangerous, just like riots. Communication, no matter how ugly, is how we work out differences before resorting to violence. Prevent people from working out their differences peaceably and it should be no surprise that violence is all that's left.

(Of course, since many European nations have outlawed hate speech, I wonder when people start suing Christian churches, given how much Christianity preaches hate and discrimination.)

That's interesting as a blanket statement. I have never seen any Christian church preach hate and discrimination except for Obama's church which I would really call a christian church (they believe the only those who have suffered in some way get into heaven or some shit like that).

Speech. At one time it did, but now there are limits to free speech. Both in the UK and USA now.

I guess that means we can send the KKK and Nazi groups in the USA to jail then for distributing hate speech materials. Also track down the "Anonymous" group for hate speech against Scientologists, etc.

At one time it did, but now there are limits to free speech. Both in the UK and USA now.

While the USA is getting there, it's still easily the best, any laws on the books probably will be struck down before the Supreme Court (although having that as my last line of defense does not reassure me).

Most countries with "Freedom of Speech" have so many exceptions to the rule that it's worthless, see Germany. Popular speech doesn't have to be protected but that's all they seem to try to protect. That is pretty ironic as the terrible parts of their history was not due to Freedom of Speech, but slavish adherence to the state, which is still ingrained in the national attitude.

It's ironic that the Founding Fathers were considered "liberals" in their day (look up the term classical liberal) but both sides of the political spectrum would love to censor speech at any opportunity, just for different reasons.

"Freedom of speech" in the US doesn't mean you can say whatever you want either. If you endanger other people by what you say (e.g. shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, incite others to murder, violence) there are consequences. If you slander someone there are consequences. If you lie under oath there are consequences.

Freedom of speech isn't a right that overrides all other laws, not should it be.

I'm amazed not only that this story was posted to/. but also that so many apparently have sympathy for these losers.

May I ask why Americans get so upset about flag buring? If I were to burn a Scottish flag here in Edinburgh the only thing that would happen is that a Japanese tourist would take my picture. If I burned a Union Jack, or especially the blue with with stars, it is possible I could get a round of applause from the locals.

"our protection of free speech really is a lot better than what most European countries have" - in a purely legal sense I'm sure you are right. However, in a practical sense I doubt if there is that much difference as although the theoretical right to free speech is there there seems, to an outsider who has spent a reasonable amount of time in the country, to be a rather narrow range of views actually expressed in public.

I'm also amazed at why people can't appreciate why Germans are just a wee bit sensitive on the subject of the Nazis - I appreciate that legislation may not be the best way to stop these things but I can at least appreciate why they are doing it.

Usually everyone does it. Kids that don't do it in some places might be chastised (and have been in the past) but nobody's actually required to do it. It's more of a social thing, such as how you are supposed to face and salute the flag when the national anthem is played. I'm sure it seems strange to someone who's not from here, but it sounds a lot creepier than it actually is.

Full text of the pledge of allegiance: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The US is a much more openly patriotic country than European countries, for better or worse. It's part jingoism, part honest patriotism, and partly a way to indoctrinate new immigrants. The pledge of allegiance was created around the same time as many of our national myths (Paul Revere, Thanksgiving, etc.), and was part of a conscious effort to create a universal American culture that could be easily taught to the growing and increasingly diverse American population.

You list a number of things that some municipalities disallow. In the US, most municipalities do not disallow what you list. None of those things are controlled by the federal gov't, or generally even the state level.

You wear an earpiece and I'll tell you what to say. We'll go all Sash Baron Cohen in Detroit. Then you can get a first-hand taste of exactly what saying things other people don't want to hear can lead to.

Publishing words that incite hatred is not "thoughtcrime". Words are not thoughts. You can think whatever hatred or whatever else you want. But speech is an action, a real act in the world that affects other people. Not all acts, not all speech or expressions, particularly in public, are protected. You do not have the right to speak in a way that harms people. And currently, as always in history, published hate speech forms links in the critical path from protected hateful thoughts to non-protected violent acts that physically harm people. Those links are on the action side of the thought/action boundary.

You can't tell someone that you're going to kill them and expect to get away with it. You likewise can't threaten everyone who's a member of a group, racial or otherwise, and expect to get away with it. You can think about genocide, but the moment you do something, including organizing or inciting others to carry it out, you've crossed the line. And that's when we have governments to protect us from you, not you from the consequences of your speech.

I don't buy it. Maybe, just maybe if an actual crime is committed and you can link the motives of the perpetrators to speech someone else made I can see an argument for criminalizing that speech. Of course, we have conspiracy laws for that. Criminalizing speech that hasn't caused yet anyone to harm anyone is just chilling. You're essentially arguing that we should prosecute precrime. Frankly, it's much worse than the speech they are trying to stop.

I have the right to say "death to [group/country/people/religion]" or "killing abortion doctors is good". You are responsible for your own choices if you decide to ask on my words, not me. In US law, anything is protected speech unless it is an *immediate* threat of violence [wikipedia.org] (i.e. inciting a riot when you are actually in the riot). If you want to defeat bad ideas, fight them with good ones in the open commerce of ideas. Suppressing speech only treats the symptom and not the root cause of the problem, wh

You're confusing civil with criminal law. Most of those websites have no legal obligation to remove anything. I run an unmoderated discussion forum and no matter how much people complain about who said what and "that's illegal", nothing gets removed without a court order. People deserve due process. Much of the censorship you speak of is voluntary... not the state's fault. Even DMCA notices can be ignored (but your hosting provider / upstream might comply).

I claim that your ability to silence what I say is harm, are you going to lock yourself up in a jail cell? Or wait, lemme guess... it's you, the wise, enlightened populist liberal, that gets to decide what constitutes "harm," what opinions are "harmful," no?

Israelis arrest (and indeed assassinate) enemies of Israel anywhere they like. Ditto the USA. A California couple publishes porn on the Internet in California, and is tried and convicted in Tennessee, which they have never visited. You can do something in a foreign country that's totally legal there, and your own government will still prosecute you for it -- as these guys did. It's only a matter of time before the USA starts prosecuting American citizens for smoking dope and visiting prostitutes in Amsterdam.

The fact is, if you publish it on the web, you're liable for it worldwide, regardless of where you are or where the server is. Better get used to it.

What they did, they did in the UK. They then fled and attempted to request asylum, which was denied. One of two things happened after that, both legal. Either their priflege of being in the US was revoked and they were deported, or the UK voiced their claim on them and they were extradited per US/UK agreements.Just because they put their works on a server in the US does not change the fact they were created in the UK. They UK can use this to say the crime occurred in their jurisdiction. They did wha

No free speech in the UK, I get that (though I strongly disagree with it!), but why not offer asylum? Don't we believe in the right to free speech ourselves? Isn't this a perfect example of a situation in which we should, when someone comes to us who is being prosecuted for a crime that we do not consider to be a crime?

On top of that, how eager do you think the U.S. is to provide asylum for people who, apparently knowingly and willingly, break a law - then when they can no longer stand the heat, think they can simply get away with it by relocating to a country with more lax laws?

"Really? Rape is illegal here? How quaint. Well then, see ya! *books flight to Somethin'stan and requests asylum*"

It worked very well, indeed. Only after Yugoslavia was broken up in little pieces, when there was no government oppression anymore, people started being nationalistic and trying to kill all the others.

Same thing happened in the ex-USSR republics (the war in Georgia last summer was a perfect example). In the times of USSR there were minor ethnic conflicts but worst thing could happen were some broken noses. After the government suppression was gone azeris started to kill armenians, georgians started to kill abkhasians and ossetins, chechens just started to kill everyone around.

There are many forms of authoritarianism. It is a belief system that is surprisingly "cross-platform"; you'll find examples in all kinds of communities, secular and religious, left-wing and right-wing, liberal and conservative.

What they have in common is a mis-trust in the governed. The governed must be repressed, and cannot be allowed to have free choice. There can be no tolerance for meaningful opposition, for that would "weaken" the community, resulting in "instability", i.e., loss of control by the governing class. It is a forced form of allegiance.

Their web site is called heretical.com [heretical.com]. They apparently hate me, too.

But their writing is so discombobulated that I'd be much more concerned about the threat to my life and liberty from a government that thinks it needs to throw people in jail over this drivel than about these two nuts or their readers.

The main problem with the laws against racism and homophobia is that they have been poorly named. They should have called it "The protection against harassment of minorities act" or something like it. As with all other liberties your freedom ends where mine begins, and just like freedom of movement does not entitle you to sleep in my front-yard, nor does freedom of speech entitle you to spread lies about my sexual orientation. If you seriously think that freedom of speech gives you a right to lie about and harass people, then I'm afraid you have a rather naive idea of how the world works and you may just find that a lot of people with disagree with you.

It is the definition of harrasment that concerns me.Is expressing an opinion harassment, or does that harssment need to be targetted toward an individual.Eg. I don't think a gay lifestyle is right, but I certainly don't hate them for it and wouldn't condone any specific action.If someone doesn't like my religion, then that's their opinion, but if they said hunt me down and kill me because of my religion, then that would be harassment.

So my concern is that the mere expresion of a personal opinion without intent could be considered harasment.

I believe in freedom of speech. There is a small risk that this could lead to anti-Semitism and violence, but there's a greater risk that censorship could lead to things that are as bad or worse. And I think that getting this out in the open is the best way to deal with it.

Don't the Brits still read Milton's Areopagitica and John Stuart Mill's On Liberty any more?

The leaflets/pamphlets weren't exactly being handed out in LA either...

It's not as though US citizens were extradited to the UK despite having committed no US crimes or committed crimes while in the territories of the UK. Shame for Gary McKimmon that the US authorities aren't similarly restrained.

The convicted parties were handing out leaflets in the UK, which drew complaints due to their racist content. The content of the leaflets was stored on a US server, but "published" (printed really) in the UK. Both defendants lived in the UK, but sought asylum in the US after they were charged.

Jurisdiction is not the problem here - in every country I know of, storing "illegal material" outside the local borders does not constitute a legal defence. If we were talking about weapons or drugs, then storing internationally (say in a safe haven where they're legal) while distributing locally (where they're illegal) would still get you charged.

The question is whether the material should be illegal in the first place. That has nothing to do with jurisdiction and everything to do with civil liberties.

still, i think the only reason the US didn't grant them asylum was because they didn't want a scandal with the UK. if those people were from, say, lebanon, i'm pretty sure the story would've had a different ending..

I think the reasons for not granting asylum were threefold: First, because the US government didn't want to be seen as a bunch of complete idiots. Second, because they didn't want the fuckers in the USA. Third, because they didn't accept their bullshit reasoning for wanting asylum. They were just as persecuted in Britain as bank robbers and rapists are.